


Bookshop

by aesc



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Charles is persistent, Charles saves retail associates from celibacy, Erik is sexually frustrated, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Shaw is a tyrant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 00:56:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesc/pseuds/aesc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If he'd been around when Emma Lazarus had written that bit about giving her your tired and your poor, Sebastian Shaw would have added "and I will put them to work for as cheap as possible," instead of the part about the lamp and the golden door and liberty and everything." [Or, the one where Shaw is the tyrannical owner of an independent bookstore, Erik is one of the several employees who hates him, and Charles is far too determined for Erik's good.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For DameK <3

**Bookshop**

If he'd been around when Emma Lazarus had written that bit about giving her your tired and your poor, Sebastian Shaw would have added "and I will put them to work for as cheap as possible," instead of the part about the lamp and the golden door and liberty and everything.

(In fact, he might have been around back then, one of the oil or steel tycoons or a factory owner who employed five-year-olds, for "His evil is ancient," as Raven liked to say, and say often. This was because Caspartina Books might have been one of the few mutant-run businesses in Boston, and it might have been one of the few places to hire mutants preferentially, but Sebastian's sympathy for his fellow posthumans ended where his profit margin began.)

In point of fact, Sebastian Shaw _did_ employ the wretched of the earth, namely, college students drowning in twenty credit hours and student loan debt, or people so hopeless at retail their names had actually made the unofficial blacklist circulated by local business owners.

To wit: Raven Xavier-Darkholme, whose constantly-metamorphosing hairstyles and array of piercings (to say nothing of her facial features and body type) had proven too much for her previous five employers; Sean Cassidy, whose attention span marijuana had contracted to about ten seconds (Sebastian frequently said he could _see_ his lectures disappearing from Cassidy's memory even as he spoke); and Alex Summers, hostile and taciturn and with an employment history that included two suspicious fires and a rap sheet that included a few more.

Then there was Erik Lehnsherr, who loathed Sebastian with a passion that Sebastian found deeply gratifying – even touching – and who was more hostile and taciturn than Summers, and far more terrifying. Why he derived such satisfaction out of watching Lehnsherr stew in helpless, subordinate fury, Sebastian had no idea, but he did.

He was okay with that.

"Darling, one would think you had a point to make," Emma Frost said the first time she graced Caspartina Books with her presence after Lehnsherr came on board. She'd watched Lehnsherr stalk out of Sebastian's office, all lithe and sullen menace; the expression on her face had been disturbingly intrigued. "Did you hear what he supposedly did to one of Osborne Aerial Sciences' customers when he gave him a hard time about some custom-order glider? Chemical burns take a very long time to heal."

"Urban legend." Sebastian waved the story into insignificance.

"Well, if you need a lawyer to represent you in the inevitable pain and suffering lawsuit, Janos is busy." Emma's lips thinned. "We're currently… involved in some unpleasantness with Drake Mountain Sports, and that damned boy isn't going down without a fight."

"I have no doubt you'll carry the day, my dear," Sebastian said, and Emma smiled her terrifying smile, pristinely white with blood on her teeth already.

Privately, Sebastian had to admit Emma might – might – have had a point. There was cheap employment on one hand, because it was easy to pay eight bucks an hour to people constitutionally incapable of obtaining steady work. On the other hand, even the thought of paying thousands of dollars in settlements and lawsuits to customers traumatized by Lehnsherr's particular brand of psychopathy… Sebastian shuddered. _Thousands of dollars_ , he thought anxiously. Times were tough for the small business person.

Lehnsherr did have one or two advantages, though, Sebastian reminded himself. He leaned back in his chair (ergonomically correct, real leather, and completely worth the overtime he'd withheld from Cassidy for screwing up a window display) and pondered the ceiling tiles and the benefits to employing someone like Erik Lehnsherr.

Advantage one: Lehnsherr was, objectively speaking, on the attractive side, with the sort of chiseled, dramatic good looks Sebastian imagined teenaged girls associated with Gothic heroes or vampires or whatever else they swooned over. At least, traffic had picked up noticeably in the ten months since Lehnsherr had started working. Sebastian had kept track of this, eliminated the influence of the holiday season (Lehnsherr had been hired, at least in part, for his willingness to work Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve) and decided that, like a good, if potentially destructive, piece of art, Lehnsherr was worth keeping around.

Advantage two, perhaps related to number one: Lehnsherr had attracted the notice of one Charles Francis Xavier, who loved books and (just as important in this context) was filthy, filthy rich.

* * *

Caspartina Books occupied an awkward corner of Brookline, far enough away from the trendy shops and restaurants to have the air of independence and neglect that drew the young people in, but close enough to seem almost _too_ raffish next to the sleek lights and chrome of its neighbors. Even after the sea changes that other independent bookstores had undergone to compete with their national-chain rivals, Caspartina remained deliberately old-fashioned, never ventilated properly and defiantly lacking in the amenities that most people expected when they visited bookstores these days. Sebastian, torn between his love of preserving money and his love of making it, had reluctantly agreed to the addition of a reading space and some furniture, and even more reluctantly to a wireless connection – but released the code only after a four-dollar minimum purchase. He had put his foot down on the subject of an espresso bar, and flatly rejected any notion of partnering with a local baker for muffins and pastries.

"If you're up late partying and doing drugs or whatever it is you kids do nowadays, that's your problem, not mine," he told Sean, when Sean had asked about the possibility of coffee _again_. "And no, you're not allowed to bring coffee into the shop; you'll end up spilling it on something, and I would _hate_ to take it out of your wages."

"What wages?" Sean had asked.

As a result, Caspartina's reluctant employees – indentured servants, Raven said – had to find other sources of entertainment. Setting up books like dominoes had ended with the three of them kept late and unpaid to reorganize all the shelves. Raven practiced her shapeshifting by transforming into carbon copies of their customers and following them around until Shaw put a stop to that, too. For a while, Sean had offered dramatic readings of the dirty parts out of the romance novels in the used-book basement, at least until he began to attract impromptu audiences consisting of curious ten-year-olds and subsequently their indignant parents. When that ended, there hadn't been much until Erik Lehnsherr came along.

"My money's on deballing," Raven said from her vantage point behind the cash desk one afternoon. A pile of used books sat mostly forgotten in front of her, a pencil tucked into a dog-eared copy of _Crime and Punishment_. "That guy is totally going to get deballed."

"Dude has a watch on, I vote Magneto's going to make him punch himself in the face until he's unconscious," Alex said. "Sean, what do you think?"

"I think dude's gonna wet himself and then faint," Sean said decisively. "It's what I'd do."

"It's what you've already done, you mean." Raven snickered and Alex joined in; Sean turned an interesting, humiliated shade of red.

(The incident had occurred about six months prior and involved Erik hoisting Sean up to Caspartina's roof for reasons and motives unspecified, and leaving him there.)

"What," Shaw materialized briefly from the back office and fixed them with a gimlet eye, "did I tell you about congregating around the cash desk? And Raven, I hope you're not helping the sciences students unload their literature textbooks again."

"Absolutely not, sir," Raven said. Sean and Alex shuffled back onto the floor, and Raven pretended to study the used-book pricing sheet. Shaw faded back through the door, and Raven returned to watching Erik and the customer.

The customer in question had already interrupted Erik while he'd been reorganizing the graphic novels, which were perpetually out of order, thus a perpetual thorn in Erik's side, thus guaranteed to put Lehnsherr in a bad mood, thus guaranteed to end badly for anyone who annoyed him. He'd then proceeded to ask after a book in the vaguest way possible, beginning with "I'm looking for this book… it's by some guy. Jim or Tim, I think?" and Lehnsherr had stared wordlessly at him, grip tightening on a copy of _Persepolis_. It was no way to treat Satrapi, and Raven winced on its behalf. The customer kept going, oblivious to impending pain, "… I think it had a black cover? Or maybe really dark blue? It's not American; like, I remember _color_ was spelled weird."

A silence had settled around Erik, as the silence before a breaking storm. Distantly, Raven heard the door chime as someone walked in, but she had eyes – and ears – only for Erik and the foolish, doomed customer. Raven felt bad for him, but not bad enough to rescue him. This was the most fun she'd had all day.

"Do I look," Erik said, "like a damned telepath?"

"Er, no," said the customer. He backed up a step, preparing to flee; the look in Erik's eyes, a pale and inimical grey, froze him in place as effectively as if Erik had pinned him with his abilities. "Um," the customer babbled, "I – I'm very sorry for – "

"Ah, I think he means John le Carré," said a new voice. A _familiar_ voice.

"Charles?" Raven squawked. The customer made a pathetic noise as Erik's attention shifted away from him.

"Raven! I didn't see you there." Charles tossed a smile at her over his shoulder. Raven scowled, because like hell he hadn't known she was right there, not ten feet away from him. Technically, Charles hadn't lied; he probably hadn't _seen_ her – like, physically, with his own eyes – because he'd zeroed in on Erik the second he'd walked through the door, maybe even before that, and when Charles was around Erik the rest of the world tended to melt away for him.

"Erik, really." Inevitably, Charles's attention swiveled back to Erik again. Raven could hear the affection hidden (badly) under the veneer of disapproval and rolled her eyes. 

"You _did_ mean John le Carré," Charles said, this time to the customer, who heaved a sigh of relief and nodded furiously, too grateful for deliverance to realize he'd just had his mind read. " _A Perfect Spy_ , I believe," Charles added after a moment and a quick telepathic look-through of the customer's brain.

"We don't have that," Erik said curtly. They actually might not – Erik's steel-trap memory meant he carried almost their entire inventory in his head – but there was also a good chance it was only Erik being difficult, encouraged by his dislike of stupid customers and his hatred of Shaw. Raven could sympathize with both these impulses. "Why don't you go to Barnes and Noble? They should carry it."

"Don't lie," Charles said with some exasperation. "Honestly, Erik."

Erik snorted unrepentantly. Raven caught the edges of Charles projecting _annoyance-affection-amusement_ and rolled her eyes again. Watching her adopted-estranged-then-re-adopted brother trapped in Erik's orbit, like an exceptionally irritating satellite whirling around an exceptionally irritable planet, didn't qualify as entertainment. It did for Alex and Sean, who lurked in the safety of the children's section and watched Charles and Erik through the gaps in the shelves.

The customer had long since fled for the mystery section and found their one copy of _A Perfect Spy_. With some disappointment – she'd been hoping for bloodshed or at least a pants-wetting – Raven rang him out and watched him escape.

By the time she got back to eavesdropping on her ridiculous brother and sociopathic colleague, Charles had shepherded Erik back into the philosophy and religion section, and they'd forgotten the rest of the store existed.

Again.

Raven sighed and went back to cataloguing books from the MIT engineers' general literature course.

* * *

The problem with being a senior carrying eighteen credit hours and an internship _and_ being a mutant who could control magnetism but not time meant that the chances for a part-time job that fit into his schedule were vanishingly small. Even worse, the positions most likely to hire him were in Erik's opinion the least desirable, requiring as they did the sort of customer service that invited abuse and entitlement, and further demanded that he interact with people who proved that acquiring money didn't need intelligence.

"It's that attitude that we don't want around here," his manager at Stryker's Sporting Goods had told him two seconds before handing him his pink slip. "It's service with a _smile_ , not service with a grimace, or service with a restraining order." At Osborne's, he hadn't even gotten that; his manager had told him that the customer wouldn't press charges so long as Erik was fired immediately and then agreed to sign a sworn statement promising he would never set foot in an Osborne's store again, ever.

In the small circle of Cambridge-area mutants, Caspartina Books had a reputation as a place that would hire mutants without the hand-wringing, extra precautions, and subtle threats that came with being employed in human-dominant establishments. Its owner also had a reputation for being a slave driver, but faced with ramen for the third week in a row and his tenth consecutive tacit rejection from an employer, Erik realized he wasn't in a position to be picky.

He had loathed Shaw at first sight, because that was how the universe conspired against him: to put him in the power of a megalomaniac who had no qualms about exploiting his workforce.

"You'll start at eight dollars an hour," Shaw had said, after a glance at Erik's resume and an abortive call to Osborne's (apparently, the manager had hung up on him when Shaw mentioned he had called regarding Erik Lehnsherr). "And you'll stay at eight dollars an hour, probably forever or until you graduate and try to do something with yourself. And I hope you don't want the holidays off to visit your family."

"No," Erik said, the short version of _I don't have any family._

"Good." The smile Shaw had offered him had been razor-thin and far from friendly; his handshake had the forced, strangling quality of a man overcompensating for a lack of decency. "You can start tomorrow; I just had to fire someone for being incredibly disappointing."

So, things had begun badly and continued downward.

Then, improbably, Charles Xavier had manifested himself in Erik's life, all cheerful blue eyes and cold-reddened nose above a ludicrously thick Dr. Who scarf. He then proceeded to insinuate himself in every corner of Erik's thoughts, well before Erik knew what was going on and certainly well before he had any chance to object.

"He's not letting you write staff recommendations anymore?" Charles asked now, not bothering to hide his amusement. He was holding the little card from the last book Erik had been allowed to review, and read it through his laughter. "' _The Help_ : a self-indulgent narrative that will appeal to white people who want to feel enlightened about their racial attitudes without having to talk to a person who isn't white.'"

"That's a recommendation, isn't it?" Erik shoved ten issues of _Inu-Yasha_ into place. "I identify a target audience and tell them why they should buy it."

"I suppose that's better than what you wrote for _Going Rogue_ ," Charles said, "As I recall, it went something along the lines of '''Don't read this book.'"

"Also a recommendation," Erik said. "It's a recommendation not to read that book."

Charles beamed at him, like Erik's contrariness was merely an endearing quirk, and his thoughts spilled over with the sort of unreserved delight that both warmed Erik straight through and mystified him to no end. It made Erik want impossible things – or worse, things that were in fact possible, and this was worse because Erik suspected he'd have no idea what to do with Charles once he had him, and that it would all end badly. That Charles didn't think the same, hovering fearlessly close and even reorganizing a few issues Erik hadn't bothered to order properly, suggested that Charles knew and didn't care.

"Just because you can read minds doesn't mean that you understand people ," Erik grumbled. He knelt to shove a handful of _Sailor Moon_ s onto the lowest shelf, next to _Vampire Hunter D_. He tried to glare up at Charles, but Charles only hummed and smiled back down at him. Next to Erik’s face, Charles’s jeans-clad leg was unexpectedly warm. Erik tried to steer his thoughts away from being _thisclose_ to Charles and tamp down on his hormones' clamoring over how he was in fact kneeling at Charles's feet, searched for his utter hatred for Shaw for keeping him late and dragged it up.

Charles sighed. "Are you doing anything tonight?"

Erik stood up and straightened, wincing at a twinge low in his back. "Shaw has me doing inventory."

"Until when?"

"Until he stops being a bastard, how the hell should I know?" With his power, Erik directed the book trolley further down the aisle to the RPG manuals. They were in even worse shape than the manga. "Why?"

"I was thinking we could, I don't know, hang out." Charles had gone a bit red around the edges and was looking at Erik as though, for the first time since they'd met, he didn't quite know what to make of him. Erik, quite against his will, found himself softening. "My comp reading is rather miserable right now."

Erik deliberately ignored Raven's encouraging and completely unsubtle nodding and concentrated on the fact that Charles was two years younger than he was and already halfway through his doctorate. "I've got early labs tomorrow," he said gruffly, when it became clear Charles wasn't going to go away.

"I was thinking Zaftig's," Charles said, dismissing _early labs tomorrow_ with an elaborate sort of casualness that made Erik want to break something. And worse, Charles knew how much he liked that place.

"I really can't," Erik said, even though it was futile at this point.

Charles waved off all considerations of Erik's busy schedule. "Raven says Shaw never stays for inventory," he said, "so give me a tap when he's gone and I'll come by. You like the brisket, right?"

"Fine," Erik grunted. He _did_ like Zaftig's brisket, but he refused to think about that. "Whatever."

"Splendid!" As though he hadn't just basically forced Erik to agree to dinner – hanging out, Erik told himself, not a date, and if Charles was going to be annoying about it at least Erik was getting a free dinner out of it all – Charles clapped him on the arm. "I'll see you later then."

* * *

They met like this:

Caspartina Books, as a well-known mutant owned-and-run establishment, worried rather less than most stores about shoplifting. Raven could shift into the guise of an ordinary customer and wander the stacks to keep an eye on things, and if anyone _did_ try to make off with a book, Erik could grab them by any handy bit of metal and magnet them to a bike stand or lamppost. Upon being notified, Shaw would sink the fear of God – or, really, Shaw himself – into them before calling the police and calmly informing the culprit that they could expect civil damages as well.

This did not necessarily stop people – particularly young people, and even more particularly young _stupid_ people – from trying.

As with most things that benefited Caspartina and Shaw, Erik was of two minds. Given that it was Shaw, Erik would have happily let people help themselves to Caspartina's stock all day long, but encouraging (or not discouraging) theft also encouraged disorder and, at least in the kids who took Caspartina as some kind of challenge, a level of stupidity that offended Erik personally. When Shaw announced after the theft of six used copies of _Like Water for Chocolate_ that "unplanned losses" to the bookshop's inventory would be deducted from the staff's wages, Erik found himself even more reluctantly on the right side of the law.

The moron that fateful day had been a human kid, old enough to know what he was doing was foolish, prowling through the photography section and taking up too much space in his massive winter coat. Erik had had an eye on him from the beginning, but the kid had been keeping watch too and in the space between Erik turning to reshelve some Vonnegut and turning back around, he'd snatched something off the shelf and stuffed it in his jacket and started to make for the door.

Erik discovered this when another customer, in navy pea coat and immense Dr. Who scarf, stepped around an endcap and the boy froze.

Really, he froze – only a moment, but Erik saw it, the stillness of utterly suspended movement, one leg still reaching forward before the boy, unfrozen, caught himself and pulled up short. The customer studied both of them silently, offered a private smile to Erik before reaching casually into the would-be thief's jacket and pulling out a shrink-wrapped hardback volume.

"Ellen von Unsworth," the customer murmured as he inspected the cover. "Excellent taste, but I'm afraid the law rather frowns on theft. And how old _are_ you?"

"Sixteen," the boy snapped. He made a startled noise, strained against the invisible bonds holding him and failed to break them. At the customer's disappointed expression, he mumbled, "Fourteen."

Erik was reluctantly impressed. 

"Of course, Jeremy." The customer smiled gently and tucked von Unsworth under his arm. "Your appreciation of the aesthetics of the erotic feminine body ought to be commended, but as I said…" His eyes were impossibly blue, compelling when they locked on Erik. "I believe you ought to have a discussion with – with Erik here, regarding better ways to support the work of artists you enjoy."

 _Telepath_. The word flickered through Erik's consciousness, followed by a swift, sweet skim of approval. He flushed. _If you don't mind waiting here a moment_ , the voice in his head said, _I believe we can get this all sorted._ Caught between his annoyance at having to summon Shaw and bemusement at meeting a twenty-year-old who talked like he'd stepped out Masterpiece Theatre, Erik could only nod.

"Now, Jeremy, as this is the first time you've tried this," the customer – _Charles, I'm Charles_ – said, "I'm sure Erik here would be willing to forgive you and let you off with a warning."

Erik opened his mouth to contest that, because he wasn't prepared to overlook attempted theft much less _forgive_ it, but what came out was a grudging, "Sure."

Charles's magnanimous expression shifted to something a bit more steely. "It would also be nice to hear an apology, Jeremy."

"Sorry," Jeremy grumbled, not sounding particularly repentant. He shot a frightened look at Charles and with somewhat more sincerity repeated himself.

"Good man," Charles said. He let go of Jeremy, who bolted for the door and vanished into the foot traffic beyond it.

Charles handed the book back to Erik, who took it automatically.

"Thanks." 

"You're quite welcome." The smile Charles offered him was brilliant and intimate, and ignited a certain warmth somewhere deep in Erik's gut, something Erik found (to his immense annoyance) he was powerless against. If Charles was eavesdropping, he gave no sign of it, only continued to regard Erik with those striking eyes of his and said, "Raven told me Shaw likes making you suffer." The smile became rather more mischievous. "She also told me you used to demagnetize people's credit cards."

"Not all the time." Raven? Charles seemed far too _nice_ to be her type. Not that it mattered, Erik told himself; he wasn't interested, no matter what curiosity and hormones said to the contrary. "Just when people deserved it, and only until Shaw worked it out."

(One customer had been his downfall, one exceptionally irritating customer who'd had five cards with him and refused to believe Erik when Erik said he couldn't enter card numbers manually. Shaw had been summoned, and that had been it.)

"I only came by to give Raven some things," Charles was saying, "but it was nice meeting you, Erik." The low, sweet buzz flickered around him again – like something soft settling around his shoulders, or the sun on a warm day, or the attentive hum of metal – before it went away, along with Charles.

When Erik allowed himself to go back at the cashdesk – two minutes after Charles left, not that he was watching the entire time or hoping for Charles to look at him again (which Charles did) – Raven was guarding a paper bag from the attentions of Sean and Alex, fending them both off with a snarl and, abruptly, six-inch long claws.

"Truffles," she said, when Erik asked, and even offered him one. When Sean and Alex protested this, she said, "At least he _asked_ ," and as Erik nibbled dubiously at the chocolate, added, "Charles brings them by sometimes; I can't get them these days."

"Oh, really?" Erik grunted. The chocolate melted into powder and stickiness on his tongue. He tried not to think about how, suddenly, the sweetness went bitter in his mouth. The wrapper in his hand resonated faintly, _real_ gold alloyed with cheaper metals in the foil, something you'd buy for someone you knew – intimately. Erik's mind shuddered with resentment.

"So," he said, once he got the rest of the chocolate down, "does _Charles_ always do that? Barge in with his – ?" Erik gestured to indicate _mind powers_.

"Oh, always," Raven assured him, fond irritation coloring her words. "When I started dating, he'd vet everyone I brought home – I mean everyone, even the girls from my soccer team." Erik blinked, wondering how they'd gone from the Charles who was involved with Raven to the Charles who was – "Older brothers are annoying, but _telepathic_ older brothers… I don't think there's a word to describe the level of irritation."

"Older brother, huh?" Erik asked nonchalantly, and out of all the emotions that cycled through him, relief was definitely not among them. _Interest_ certainly wasn't, nor were speculations on ways to learn when Charles might be in again.

Raven gave him an arch look, arch enough that Erik wondered if maybe some of Charles's telepathy hadn't rubbed off on her. Grumbling to himself, he levitated one more truffle out of the bag to save for later, and went back to reshelving.

* * *

When he'd been younger, Charles believed that humanity offered an almost inexhaustible fund of creativity, passion, experience, and perspective. So much _difference_ , so many identities crowding around, so many voices competing to be heard. The mind was a kaleidoscope, endlessly intriguing in the patterns it created and re-created, and he thought he should be able to spend lifetimes studying them.

Along with hormones (and an absent growth spurt), growing up brought with it the realization that most people were, well, _boring_. Add in the endless list of restrictions placed on telepaths by a hyper-paranoid society, a list that limited any meaningful contact to surface thoughts and particularly strong or broadcast emotions, and _boring_ only began to describe the utter, quotidian sameness of the human mind.

The more he thought about it, Charles decided that _boring_ wasn't a moral judgment, or a judgment of worth. For that matter, _boring_ wasn't precisely the right word, although it had seemed that way in the six months or so of rebellion he'd allowed himself at sixteen. It was simply years of socialization and acculturation and expectation, and where minds might differ in a few things – like variations on a piano piece, the subtle touches that distinguish one player from another – overall they were, more or less, the same. People's thoughts ran along the same general track, preoccupied with the day-to-day; where they stood out was in the small places – a woman sighing as her favorite piece of music hit its crescendo, the struggle between what the mind wanted and what the world said was acceptable and that transcendent moment of saying _the hell with it_ and giving in to the former, that sort of thing.

Difference was a rare bird. Every now and then a mind came along that was like an undiscovered country, and Charles tended to fall in love with them. Or, Raven said tartly when Charles tried to explain it to her after he first met Erik, with their neurotransmitters, which was not precisely the same thing.

"That explains Erik, though," she mused. "You probably don't get to see someone that certifiable allowed outside."

"That's not very fair, darling."

"Don't 'darling' me," Raven said ominously.

At the time, Charles had desperately wanted to explain to Raven that Erik hadn't, in fact, been planning to use Jeremy's skull as a hat (which was what Alex and Sean apparently believed). Mostly, he'd only wanted to terrify the kid into wetting himself every time he even thought about shoplifting, or paralyze him with fear long enough to call the police. It occurred to him that maybe Erik liked it that way: while Erik wasn't precisely a creampuff encased in a layer of hostile, temperamental steel, he had that hostility and temperament for a reason. He probably cultivated it, Charles thought after Raven had huffed off and left him to gaze dreamily at his ceiling, like other people cultivated plants, or hobbies.

Then, Charles reminded himself, there was the additional difficulty of Erik actually believing he _was_ this person. It violated all sorts of ethical codes – and, you know, laws – to know these things about Erik, the things that got pressed deep down where most people didn't have to think about them if they didn't want to. Those tended to be the things that came out in dreams, or were dragged up now and then in unguarded moments. Charles had his own blind spots, but it was hard being blind to other people, even when they were blind to themselves.

Working out that he was in love with Erik – and not just… neurotransmitter lust, or whatever – had been easy.

And Erik was in love with _him_ , or at least partway to being there, but like everything else with Erik, it was snarled up in a complex of mistrust, anger, and independence, and what Charles decided was pure, simple bloody-mindedness. It had been easy to work that out, too.

That Erik was aware of his mental gymnastics but was also refusing to acknowledge them – that was the rub. It chafed at Charles, nearly to distraction.

"Generally speaking," Raven said when they'd been curled up on her tiny couch one night, after he'd done something ill-advised and told her about Erik, "people don't like it when you tell them things they haven't figured out yet, or don't want to admit to themselves. It's just a thought."

"You always say that, and it always ends up being true," Charles said mournfully. " _Why_ , though?"

"If you figure it out, you'll get the Nobel for That's The Way Things Are Studies." Raven's arms tightened around him, her scales sliding slick-smooth against his skin. "Also, I'm pretty sure most people still don't like having their minds read. So, if you want to get in my psychotic coworker's pants, you'll have to do it the hard way, I'm afraid."

"They've had sixty years to get used to it," Charles groused, deciding discrimination against telepaths was a safer topic than Erik. "My grandfather was a well-known telepath and – "

"Preaching to the choir," Raven butted in, "and the choir is bored. Now hand me the remote, my shows are on."

So it was that his and Erik's most recent conversation had led to this: Charles lurking in a coffee shop a block away from Caspartina, paying half a mind to his coffee and scone. The other half – rather more than half, really, a thirty-seventy split – hovered over Erik's shoulder, a mental finger's-breadth from brushing the skin of Erik's thoughts. It probably moved him into the creepy stalker side of the spectrum, and Raven would have words to say about it if she ever found out ( _oh_ would she have words, and she would find out somehow), but for Charles, there wasn't much of a difference between standing five feet away and sitting five hundred – or five miles – if he didn't want there to be.

That, and he was helplessly fascinated by Erik, he had to admit; Erik with his thoughts as undeviating as railway tracks, single-minded determination and practicality a scaffold of iron and steel that gave structure to the deep, upsurging well of passion, anger, and conviction. Erik wasn't particularly nice – he wasn't nice at all, if Charles were being completely honest with himself – but he was _good_ , good in a way that didn't require niceness to exist, not the cloying, angelic sort of goodness, but the kind that its owner refused to acknowledge he might even have. Charles knew from Raven's reports that Erik had, despite his status as relative newcomer, taken over leadership of the young mutants of the Caspartina, and stood up for them as much out of his concern for them as his dislike (well, complete and utter loathing) of Shaw. He had an instinctive hatred of injustice and the sort of stupidity that allowed it to exist, and under the hostility and aloofness, a yearning for something like the family he didn't have anymore.

Like most people he wanted to _belong_ , but the fiercely-ignored ache of that wanting – that, that was different.

On any other day, and faced with someone other than Erik, Charles would puzzle over the contradiction of how it was possible to be a fundamentally good, but not a decent, person. On this particular day, he was mostly absorbed in following along as Erik reorganized the biography section, finding himself caught in eddies of disapproval as Erik wondered why, even in a mutant-owned bookstore, there were so few biographies of mutants, or decent, unsensationalized mutant histories, or even children's books on how to cope with manifesting abilities. 

_Here we are, more than fifty years after mutants were first recognized by the world and we still can't help kids understand themselves._ A few random thoughts bubbled up, half-formed meditations on Erik writing some of those books himself, _I wish I'd had someone to help me figure this shit out_ , before Erik discarded them in a flurry of impatience and reminders that he had enough work to do, and anyway, he wasn't a writer. The thoughts returned anyway, flitting idly around the margins of Erik's brain, making inroads when boredom overwhelmed Erik's ability to concentrate on his work.

Charles felt Shaw leave, not so much perceiving him directly as catching the contrails of _finally_ and _relief_ that poured off Erik and the rest of the staff. Sean, his psychic presence a haze not unlike marijuana smoke in the corner of Charles's awareness, left a few minutes later with Alex in tow. This left Raven, who seemed determined to stay, so determined that Charles gave serious thought to nudging her gently out the door. Erik beat him to it, with a pointed remark about calculus homework and a failing grade. 

He wasn't paying close enough attention to catch Raven's retort, but even on the edges of Erik's mind he found himself caught in tides of desire-affection-embarrassment before a wave of impatience covered over everything else. It shocked Charles back to himself and the coffee shop – which was in the process of closing, and whose barista was spiky with irritation – and even the heat of Erik's annoyance with himself couldn't quite mask the softer warmth that had been the briefest image of _himself_ through the lens of Erik's liking him: animated hands and eyes, the ghostly overlay that was Erik's split-second hypothesis of what it might be like to kiss Charles on the mouth.

With the barista glowering over his shoulder, Charles pulled out his phone and dialed Zaftig's.

* * *

Erik desultorily pulled up the purchase and sale records for the past week. Shaw, devoted to sadism in all its forms, used an antiquated inventory program, one that froze and needed hours to update its numbers – deliberately, Erik suspected – and in league with the equally-antiquated printer, meant that a simple two-hour task might need as much as four.

 _Charles_ , he reminded himself, careful to keep the thought in his own head. What difference that might make to Charles, he had no idea; laws or no laws, Charles probably had his own ideas of what constituted acceptable telepathic behavior.

That he was not more irritated by this mystified Erik to no end. The mystification, however – that irritated him. A lot.

He tore the information on biography/autobiography off the printer and stalked through the now-silent store through to the shelves. _Charles_ , his brain reminded him as he tried to concentrate on counting, and hounded him from Alcott through to Twain, interrupting him at Marie Curie for a meditation on Charles half-drowned in his Dr. Who scarf, and then again at Magnus Eisenhardt (shelved under M for _Magneto_ , one of the precious few mutant biographies, and a personal hero of Erik's) for a consideration of the dizzying power Charles had to have, if he could use his telepathy to hold Erik down, or if he'd be able to whisper filthy thoughts right into Erik's brain while Erik tried to concentrate on his labwork.

"Fuck," he muttered. Charles was a distraction from, well, everything: the need to get his work done and graduate, the need to get through inventory so Shaw would stay off his back for another day. Shifting, he checked off Nelson Mandela (immediately after Magneto) and absently skimmed his way through to Twain, not seeing the titles on the spines so much as seeing Charles pushed up against the shelves, panting and twisting happily against him, and he'd be good, really good, Erik knew – he'd know everything, know how Erik liked the other person pushing into his mouth, and fingers holding firm at the back of his neck, and Charles would tell Erik what he liked, too, if he liked Erik pressing one thigh between his legs or if the subtle dip of his spine was really as sensitive as it looked.

 _Charles_ , Erik thought helplessly, nearly breathless.

 _Be there in a tick_ , Charles replied, sounding thoroughly composed – except, except, Erik thought, maybe for a telepathic breathlessness of his own.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god they would not. shut. up.
> 
> Also, please consider this my official plea for a picture of Charles in a pea coat and gigantic Dr. Who scarf. Please, I beg of you all, this must be made to exist, I will do whatever is necessary to make it happen.

Caspartina lay in the strange silence of a space more used to noise and people. Usually Charles would have been thrilled to have a bookstore to himself – no tripping over people or working to block out the thoughts of twelve readers reading silently to themselves – but today the thrill came from something entirely different. As Erik led him by the silent bookshelves and empty cash desk and through the door to the back room, Charles barely saw the rows of titles and posters advertising upcoming releases, concentrated as he was on Erik's peculiar, intense quiet and the weight of expectation. It pressed at him until Charles thought he'd break under it.

There was a word in the native language of Tierra del Fuego – Charles recalled it, from one of those websites specializing in strange, possibly inaccurate, information – that meant the look shared by two people who were interested in each other but were both afraid to make the first move. Whatever the word, Charles couldn't remember it specifically but felt it applied to the current situation, seeing as, upon moodily accepting the offering of brisket, Erik had retired to the employee break room. Charles had followed, sitting atop a merchandise table positioned directly across from the door. 

The break room was more like a closet, inhabited by an asthmatic refrigerator, a desk with a phone book (but no phone) and employee manual, a rickety chair, and Erik. Charles said something vague about how there should have been one of those posters with information on the minimum wage and worker's rights, and where to go to file grievances. Erik looked up from his dinner long enough to roll his eyes expressively in the direction of Shaw's locked office door.

"If there's anyone capable of leading a revolt, it's you." Charles's sandwich was nowhere near as intriguing as Erik, who was working his way through the brisket with the intense concentration Charles associated with large, feral cats. Erik made a noncommittal noise and swallowed before saying, "If running this place wouldn't be worse than working for it, I _would_ ," and Charles laughed.

"Maybe that's why Osborne and Stryker fired you," Charles said. He pushed his sandwich over to a corner of the table; Erik tore his gaze away from his food long enough to watch this, and to allow himself the briefest flicker of a question, _are you – ? do you – ?_ It danced across the surface of his cortex, bright and distracting. Charles shivered. _Please, I want this_ , he thought fervently, _I know you do too_ , because that question had been not so much a question as a sudden bounding of hope and anticipation, a sudden flurry of fantasy – Charles pushing his food away so he could beckon to Erik, so Erik could reach out unhesitatingly to take his hand – 

With a sharp exhalation, Erik attacked his potato salad. "How did you know about Osborne and Stryker, anyway?" Suspicion filtered through, cold air through the joints of a door and taking the edge off Charles's ardor.

"Raven told me when I asked about you, that day we met," Charles said as casually as he could. It was not, he suspected, terribly casual.

"So you didn't – " Erik seesawed his hand to indicate telepathic eavesdropping.

"No, I didn't." Not about that at any rate.

Erik's shoulders relaxed, and something in his spine loosened. Charles toyed with the paper wrapping of his sandwich, acutely aware that Erik, despite his apparent absorption with the potato salad, was watching.

"So," Charles said. "Inventory."

"It's not really inventory, just Shaw making up work. He says it's 'loss prevention.'" The amount of scorn Erik managed to fit into _loss prevention_ was truly impressive. He speared a potato with his fork and chewed it ferociously.

"Why're you here, anyway?"

The question, coming as it did around a mouthful of potato salad, was no less direct and startling.

It deserved a direct answer, and so Charles said, "I'd think that would be obvious."

Just because the question deserved a direct answer didn't mean it would _get_ one. Charles thought, very gently – the psionic equivalent of a whisper – that Erik was quite nice-looking, and that he would not at all mind if Erik got it into his head to stand up, come over, insinuate himself between Charles's knees, and kiss him senseless.

Erik twitched and shook his head like shaking away a fly. To Charles's endless delight, Erik closed the Styrofoam carton and set it aside, and stood up, the expression on his face absolutely determined, and every cell in Charles's body sang with elation as Erik approached, close enough in the claustrophobic interior of the stock room for Charles to see the interplay of light and shadow in Erik's grey, grey eyes, and every hormone-secreting gland rejoiced as Erik leaned in even closer – leaned in to pick up the printout he'd abandoned earlier, and gripped it tight enough for the paper to crumple.

And like that Erik wasn't close anymore. Charles watched in mute amazement as Erik spun on his heel and marched out of the stockroom, the door swinging shut behind him after he pushed through it.

After processing his way through _that_ for a moment, because what in the _hell_ , he couldn't have been more open about what he wanted – and after spending an even longer moment wondering if his telepathy had let him down, and if, god forbid, Raven was right – Charles scrambled off his table, reflexively grabbed his bookbag, and chased Erik out into the store proper.

He found Erik staring dully at the Essays section, absently holding a copy of C.F. Xavier's _Essays on the Metahuman_. Despite suspicious looks when people connected him with one of the world's first-acknowledged telepaths, Charles was proud to say, yes, he _was_ related to that C.F. Xavier, but at the moment he wished the damn book didn't exist. He wished Erik would look at him, and that Raven hadn't been right – that the things people didn't want to admit to themselves were the things that needed to be left alone and not poked and prodded at. 

Charles was, unfortunately, very good at poking and prodding.

Eisenhardt's _A Posthuman Manifesto_ sat on the shelf, a strange companion to Xavier's book. Charles had read both, of course – they were required reading for any young mutant, sort of like how _Atlas Shrugged_ had been required reading for the unbearable young men in Charles's freshman philosophy class. 

"There was a lot of fighting over terminology back then," he said. The words came out of him without his willing them, just to fill the silence. "Xavier thought _metahuman_ sounded more inclusive, and acknowledged the fact that people with extraordinary mutations were still biologically human, and at that time _mutant_ had so many negative connotations. Eisenhardt preferred _mutant_ or _posthuman_ himself, to emphasize what he saw as mutant exceptionalism."

Erik snorted. "Did you major in Mutant Studies?"

"No such thing," Charles said, which Erik knew well enough. A handful of college courses touched on mutants in literary, historical, and social contexts; most of the work was still scientific, and done _on_ mutants. There'd been all sorts of ethical hand-wringing over using mutant students in clinical and genomic trials at Harvard and MIT; Johns Hopkins was at the center of a lawsuit.

"I like _mutant_ ," Erik said decisively. "We should reclaim it."

"I suppose we have, in a sense." Charles had seen Raven's _MUTANTAND PROUD_ banner; she'd been wearing it in the police station after she'd been picked up for indecent exposure at a pride parade. Other words fumbled clumsily around his brain, having to do with how magnificent Erik's powers were and the whole, confusing spectrum of thoughts and images that unfurled across Charles's awareness whenever he thought of him.

Erik bit his lip, ruffled the pages of _Essays_ with his thumb. This close, the confusion-want-anger that sluiced off him caught Charles up in the eddies and swirls of it, Erik wanting him and not certain what to do about it, and _angry_ at not being certain when Erik was certain of most things in his life. Charles thought, suddenly and uncomfortably, of Raven and how _people don't like it when you tell them things they haven't figured out yet, or don't want to admit to themselves_ , and he imagined what would happen if he pressed the issue now.

It wouldn't be anything he wanted, Charles figured.

"Erik," he began, trying very hard not to think about the steel-cord tension that thrummed in Erik's body and the same tautness in his mind, like a wire pulled tight. "Erik – I _am_ sorry, truly." Erik didn't look at him, and while Charles had the sense that, despite his apparent fixation on the book, all of Erik's attention was fastened firmly to him, he didn't dare go further into the treacherous currents of Erik's head. "I've got work too, so I'll head out, I guess… I hope I didn't get you in trouble with Shaw – you know, with dinner and all."

Erik didn't say anything.

"Right. I'll see you later, then." Charles turned around, trying hard not to taste the disappointment that crowded thick in his throat and thought, very deliberately, of the process involved in getting to his office and the safety of the qualifying exam reading he shouldn't have left. It was curiously like being drunk, working through the haze of _great work, Xavier_ and desire so suddenly cooled he was almost dizzy with the shift, _walk to Kenmore, Green Line up to Park, Red Line to Harvard Square, up Peabody Street, across Cambridge, far entrance to Bauer_. If he thought about that hard enough, and the importance of paying with his Charlie Card instead of the Oyster card he still carried around, he'd be able to ignore the quiet, festering confusion radiating off Erik, the sudden spike of _no no no_ as Charles made for the door. Charles hunched up in his jacket and reconstituted his shields, because it was either that or drip disappointment and humiliation all over the place, and Boston did not need to know Charles F. Xavier (the second telepath of that name) had had his ego and heart beaten to a comprehensive pulp.

Distantly, he heard a soft _thump_ , as of something hard hitting the wood flooring.

"Wait," and that was Erik, voice hoarse and catching on something Charles couldn't let himself think about. And then, silently, Erik said _Charles_ , and pretty much everything Charles could and couldn't identify was wrapped up in his name, so he had turn back around, holding his satchel for dear life.

Erik had dropped the copy of the _Essays_ and usually Charles would have something to say about that, but Erik was staring at him, somewhere between lost and determined – someone who'd found himself lost, maybe, and had resolved to find his own way out – and it was hard to think about anything other than that. Charles kept his mind to himself, and _oh_ that was hard too, but it seemed only fair because Erik couldn't read his mind, and so he let himself be looked at.

Whatever Erik saw there must have been good, because the tides shifted and _intent_ came off him in waves that battered away everything else. Charles thought stupidly of pheromones before he realized Erik was _thinking_ at him, the intensity of it almost shouting, a clamor of _please tell me I can do this please don't hate me I want this I want you it'll be so so good_ and _yes_ was all Charles could say or think to that before he dropped his bookbag.

Erik kissed like it was everything, his thin, hard mouth softening into generosity as it shaped itself to Charles's. He licked at Charles's lips like he even needed to wait for an invitation, and Charles let him in – disgracefully quickly, really, but he'd been waiting _ages_ for this, after all. The sound Erik made when Charles kissed him back was perfect, electric, a spark that catalyzed pleasure deep in Charles's gut and spread it up and down his spine.

 _Wanted this wanted you so bad_ , Erik thought at him hungrily, and oh god, Charles was very _not_ prepared for that, although really how could you be, with Erik Lehnsherr staring at you with his mind and eyes steamed up like car windows when – the metaphor cut off when Erik bit enthusiastically at Charles's lower lip, and Charles had to reciprocate.

"Maybe we should," Charles began, and had to finish with a silent _take this somewhere not so obvious_ , because Erik was doing something extremely disconcerting to his neck, licking and nipping at the pulse point where it throbbed under Charles's jaw, and he was doing it directly in front of the glass window that fronted the store.

With an impatient noise, Erik dragged him back to their old quiet corner, the philosophy and religion section. Shaw didn't have much use for either philosophy or religion, Charles figured, and he issued a silent apology to Hegel, Heidegger, and Kant, whose spines now had Charles's back pressed up against them, and his foot nudging a copy of _Human, All Too Human_ out of the way as he used the lowest shelf for some leverage and a bit of extra height. Erik was really unfairly tall.

"And narrow," Charles mumbled, because it was true. Erik seemed to exist in two dimensions when looked at a certain way, all clean Euclidean lines and, "are you thinking about _geometry_?" Erik asked, his voice shivery and rough both at once.

"Possibly," Charles said cagily. "What of it?" 

Erik made a noise and kissed him again, and pawed anxiously at the untucked tails of Charles's shirt. Charles stretched up, and oh yes this was better even precariously balanced as he was, with his toes braced on the lowest shelf and Erik's steel-cord arms supporting him. Like this he could kiss Erik properly, and by properly he meant pushing into Erik's mouth and feeling it go pliant beneath his own and feeling Erik's mind go pliant too, thinking how much he liked it like this, trading dominance between the two of them. He – and by _he_ he didn't know if he meant himself or Erik – could sink into this, could keep going down and down, held up only by how much he wanted to get at skin and see what else could produce those marvelous noises, only – only –

* * *

"Fuck."

"What?" Charles was staring at him, blue eyes hazy, like glass clouded over. "What?"

"Shaw." Erik felt as hazy as Charles looked, and had to struggle to clarify himself. "Security cameras."

Shaw's paranoiac impulses had competed with, and defeated, his cheapskate nature in this one regard. He might have trusted his employees to be vigilant against shoplifters, but _qui custodiet ipsos custodes_ , had the security cameras put in to deter what he'd called "inside jobs" at their last staff meeting. He'd eyed all of them like they were criminals in waiting, biding their time until some weakness presented itself.

Of course, what he thought he'd accomplish with magnetic tape and cameras bolted to the wall with metal screws, Erik had no idea. Wiping the tapes was easy, managing the screws a little more difficult with Charles twisting impatiently against him.

"You didn't have to do that," Charles pointed out after three sets of cameras fell to their deaths.

"Yes, I did." 

And with that, Erik decided, they could get back to more important things, like getting under Charles's shirt for one. And getting under that – "Hmmm," Erik breathed, because Charles was firm and soft both at once, sturdy in a way he both expected and found surprising – yeah, getting under that was perfect. Charles sighed happily and bit approvingly at Erik's collar bone, and Erik felt Charles's smile woven through his own pleasure and pressed against the skin at the base of his throat.

"'S nice," Charles mumbled as he worked at Erik's belt; clumsier than usual, Erik needed a moment to pull it loose, his power twining awkwardly with Charles's fingers. "Most people aren't – 's weird, the mind-thing."

 _How could it be weird_ , Erik thought, more fiercely than he intended, it could only be weird if you were a fucking idiot. _That's what I think_ , Charles thought confidingly at him, red-red mouth plush under Erik's now, so wonderfully responsive and his delight absolutely _everywhere_ , and the only way this could get any better would be – _This?_ Charles said, and insinuated his hand into Erik's boxers.

The sound Erik made was a sound he would deny ever making. It was high and thin and desperate, arcing out of his throat like his hips arched into Charles's hand. He could only hold on, really, clutch Charles to him and bury his face against Charles's neck with Charles's slick fingers working their deliberate way down the length of his cock and Charles _thinking_ at him, pleased thoughts about suspicions being confirmed and how much Erik wanted him.

"You don't even know," Erik huffed raggedly, because telepath or not, Charles honestly couldn't know what it had been like to spend months hovering over that depthless pit of _want_ and trying to tell himself he wasn't.

Charles did something twisty and interesting with his wrist that had Erik shivering and ineffectually biting back a cry. His free hand had settled on Erik's cheek, anchoring enough for Erik to drag his eyes open and look at Charles looking at him.

"I do know," Charles said, and something about the physical fact of his voice, and the rush of sensation that came behind it – Charles tangled up in Erik's synapses and aching with wanting to tell him everything and having to keep it all back – hit him like a freight train.

Only, he could have stopped a freight train and there was no stopping this because Charles was inexorable and didn't care how powerful Erik was. He heard, distantly, Charles encouraging him, telling him how amazing he was and god, _just look at you Erik, you're magnificent_ , so awed like Charles couldn't believe it. And maybe it was the awe that did it, the extra nudge over, the awe and Charles's fingers tugging him over the edge, and when he fell and hit the bottom, he came apart.

Coming back to himself was like being put back together, the pieces not quite fitting the way they used to. He'd shaped himself to Charles, and both of them had slumped to the floor, with Erik resting against his chest and Charles's thighs bracketing him. They quivered against Erik's sides where they pressed together, and what skin Erik could feel was sweat-sticky and cooling. He couldn't feel but could see Charles's heartbeat in the flicker of pulse in his neck, and that seemed to be calming, too. He looked much as Charles must have felt, Erik supposed as he took stock of himself, shirt undone and cock rather embarrassingly hanging out of his boxers, and his bones too liquefied for him to do much about either of those things, even if he wanted to.

Feebly, Charles stirred against him, and mostly succeeded in nuzzling under Erik's chin.

"Good god," Charles huffed against his neck, "I came in my pants."

"Not very dignified of you," Erik said, somewhat amazed that he could remember how words worked, much less how to have a conversation. Charles's lashes, his nose, his lips brushed the skin by his larynx, a series of absent kisses.

Charles snorted. "I couldn't help it. One of us orgasms very loudly."

"I hope," Erik said, "You're not expecting an apology."

"Not in a million years," Charles said, dry as dust, and laughed into the disarray of Erik's hair.

* * *

The damage to the cameras and the video tape had, predictably, come out of Erik's paycheck. And then, because Erik had been infuriatingly unbothered by Sebastian's calculations as to how many months Erik would need to make restitution, Sebastian had exacted further vengeance by forcing Erik to put together the front window and endcap displays for the most recent YA vampire-werewolf romance. The trade paperbacks were for the movie tie-in, which meant Erik had to spend far more time than he wanted trying to force into cooperation the stand-ups of pale, brooding twentysomethings. In the end, the male romantic lead had a cardboard-brown scar running across the chiseled line of his jaw, and the dark, dubiously-ethnic werewolf character was missing one of his dark, smoldering eyes.

"It's done, isn't it?" Erik said when Sebastian pointed out that the goal of such displays were to _entice_ customers, rather than repel them. "But if you want it done properly, you could always find another person."

Sebastian made a noise of profound and frustrated displeasure, and, tugging at his jacket, retired behind the cash desk. Raven didn't even bother to hide a few student copies of _Great Expectations_ under a few new hardbacks, and more or less ignored him while he huffed and paced impotently, glaring at the stack of reserved books before retiring into his office.

Not for the first time, he toyed with the possibility of firing Lehnsherr altogether. The security cameras still pained him – he was fairly certain he'd been overcharged, and his insurance refused to cover "mutant-related" damages – and on top of that, he had begun to sense the early ferment of rebellion. There was Raven to start with, and even Cassidy had begun to bring in coffee in the mornings – first small doppio espresso shots, but now… now, Sebastian thought blackly, a small forest of travel mugs clustered underneath the cash desk and had begun to take over the break room. Alex's reading recommendations had steadily become more disturbing. Parents had started to complain.

Lehnsherr was at the root of it, of course. Sebastian ground his teeth, remembered his dentist's warnings, and forced himself to relax. Lehnsherr had balked him since day one, had somehow overcome Sebastian's strategy of divide and conquer, and set himself up as the leader of the most incompetent group of retail associates known to man or mutant. Even now, Sebastian scowled at the feeds from the security cameras, he was leaning back against an endcap across from where the Religion and Philosophy section used to be, talking animatedly with – with –

Sebastian looked at the other screen, with the camera feeding in from the opposite angle. Lehnsherr was talking with Charles Xavier of all people, Charles Xavier with his arms full of books. While he recalled their conversation, which had mostly involved Charles smiling pleasantly at him and saying polite things about supporting independent, mutant-owned businesses in his polite English accent, Sebastian started grinding his teeth again.

There would be no getting rid of Lehnsherr, not until Lehnsherr wanted to go. In fact, given that Xavier's trust fund could probably support Sebastian's entire incompetent staff without breaking a sweat, Sebastian suspected that Lehnsherr was sticking around simply to torture him. Lehnsherr was the sort of person to do that, torture someone for no reason whatsoever.

Life was very hard for the small businessman, Sebastian decided. Very hard indeed.

* * *

Initially Charles had been worried that their _exploits_ (Charles's term) would have dire repercussions on the stability of Erik's employment, and that Erik would be too proud and stubborn to accept any help from him whatsoever. While Erik had his pride, he found he was happy to sacrifice it in one particular: introducing Charles as his boyfriend, and Charles suggesting that _anything_ Shaw did to make Charles unhappy with respect to Erik's work situation would be reflected in the number of books Charles bought every month.

"Dude," Sean said, when Erik had walked out of his meeting with Shaw concerning restitution for the security cameras, "Dude, do you think – "

"I'm not using Charles to get your damn coffee," Erik told him.

Still, a month later, Raven, Alex, and Sean found themselves kept late to move the Philosophy and Religion section down to the used-books basement while Shaw talked to Janos about the legalities of acquiring food and beverage licenses. Six months after that, Caspartina added Darwin to its roster, for eight dollars an hour – with the possibility ("the _remote_ possibility," Shaw clarified) of a raise after six months of regular employment.

Initially Charles had been disappointed to see the Philosophy and Religion section relegated to the downstairs – "Just because they don't involve vampires or, or _wizards_ doesn't mean they're not important" – but then Erik had crowded him up against disapproving volumes of Schopenauer and Spinoza and it had been enough like old times to pacify him.

Life was good, Erik reflected. It had taken awhile, but Shaw's megalomania had been checked, and now he almost – almost – looked forward to going to work. Still, he vastly preferred his two days off, or sometimes even better, locking up after Shaw released him for the night and making his way back up to Cambridge.

This, in fact, was what he was doing this particular night, letting himself into their apartment as quietly as he could. He'd half-expected to come back to an empty set of rooms, but the body-warm circle of Charles's watch rested in the study, quite still. Reading, Erik supposed, because the pile of books and articles that comprised Charles's dissertation exam reading list was never-ending. He dumped his computer bag on its chair (the kitchen table, despite Charles's protestations, had quickly been converted to a central receiving platform for all books and papers) and wound his way through the comforting dimness of the apartment, all old wood and brass-studded leather furniture, like something out of an old university club.

Charles might have walked right out of one of those places, too, except for the fact that at the moment his stillness wasn't due to reading, but rather to being completely and utterly dead to the world, face mashed into a printout, a furrow running across his brow as though, despite being asleep, he was trying to absorb the article's information by osmosis.

Erik's heart did something complicated. Whatever it was, it translated to warmth and impatience, soft-edged and softening still more when Charles stirred, blinked, and peeled his face off the article. Charles's presence in the back of his mind, almost everyday but still startling whenever Erik allowed to think about it, felt like clumsy fingers, stroking awkwardly but still pleasant for all that.

"Errk," Charles said, peering up at him. "Wha – what are you doing back already? I thought you were working tonight."

"It's past nine." Erik rolled his eyes as Charles tried to rub the sleep out of his. "I don't suppose you actually took the day off like you said you were going to."

"I took the _day_ off," Charles said. He felt shifty in Erik's head.

"But not the night," Erik said with all the sarcasm he could manage. It was quite a bit. "Come on, I didn't get Shaw to let me off early so I could watch you drool on…. 'Neural pathway development in X-gene positive non-telepaths.'"

"Shaw let you off early?" Charles said this around a gigantic yawn. "How did you manage that?"

"I have my ways."

"You do," Charles agreed. He smiled, lazy and sly, and with his eyes still sleep-hazed he looked – Erik swallowed hard. He _looked_. He had his t-shirt on inside out, and was wearing jeans Erik liked mostly because they were loose enough to tug off Charles's hips.

"Take me to bed?" Charles asked, the sharpening in his voice (still rough around the edges) saying he'd more than caught on to Erik's interest.

"I don't know." Erik pretended to consider this. "Are you planning to fall asleep once we're there?"

"Eventually," Charles said, "but not right away."

Charles was also, Erik noticed, wearing a belt. He tugged at it meaningfully and, with a quirk of his lips, Charles came. Toner had rubbed off on his cheek, and Erik nosed at it thoughtfully, smiling a bit at the thought of Charles's formidable concentration finally lapsing enough for him to zone out and drift off.

"I'm glad I amuse you," Charles grumbled into the hollow of Erik's neck. He nipped the skin there, right above Erik's pulse point, reprovingly.

"You do a lot more than that," Erik said. He would have been embarrassed at his honesty if Charles hadn't gotten it and then let it go in favor of lacing his fingers through Erik's and pulling him through the door to their bedroom, and letting Erik lay him back in the mess of covers and twine the two of them close, close, close.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [that's a nice scarf you've got there](https://archiveofourown.org/works/342373) by [verilyvexed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verilyvexed/pseuds/verilyvexed)




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